Head Of EPMO

Head of ePMO

Location: Dubai, UAE
Employment Type: Full-Time, Permanent
Reports To: Chief Strategy Officer

myZoi is a CBUAE-regulated fintech on a mission to deliver financial inclusion for the underbanked workforce in the UAE and beyond. We serve employers, employees, and migrant workers across payroll, remittance, cards, and value-added financial services — operating at the intersection of regulatory complexity, product ambition, and rapid growth.

We are at an exciting stage of our journey. Our product portfolio is scaling, our governance infrastructure is maturing, and our strategic agenda is becoming more ambitious. The people and systems we put in place now will define how myZoi operates at the next level of scale.

As Head of EPMO you will be the central governance and delivery control function for myZoi's product and enterprise portfolios. This is a high-authority, high-visibility role that sits at the heart of how myZoi decides what to build, what to fund, and how to deliver — reporting directly to the Chief Strategy Officer with a close working relationship with the Chief Product Officer.

You will own the end-to-end governance framework across two distinct portfolios — the product delivery pipeline and the enterprise initiative register — each with its own governance model, approval authority, and reporting cadence. You will be the single point of accountability for ensuring that engineering capacity is always allocated to the highest-value work, that no initiative enters development without structured validation and executive authorisation, and that leadership has a live, accurate, and honest view of delivery health at all times.

This is not a coordination role and it is not a reporting role. The right candidate builds governance systems, enforces them under pressure, and walks into every leadership meeting already knowing the answer.

You will be stepping into a function that has an established framework and a clear mandate — and your role will be to own it, activate it, and make it the operating backbone of how myZoi delivers. Everything the EPMO governs connects directly to myZoi's strategic agenda and business plan — your job is to ensure that connection is visible, maintained, and enforced across every initiative in flight.

You will operate as a strategic partner to the Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Product Officer on a daily basis, with regular interaction with the CTO, CFO, COO and functional leadership across the business. You will lead a small EPMO team comprising an Agile Lead and a Project Manager, and you will be embedded in the delivery rhythm of three product squads.

Portfolio Governance

● Ensure that initiative prioritisation across both portfolios remains anchored to myZoi's strategic objectives and annual business plan — flagging to the CSO and CPO when the portfolio mix drifts from agreed strategic priorities

● Own, refine, and enforce the structured intake and prioritization framework across product and enterprise portfolios — ensuring every initiative is classified, validated, and authorized before development begins

● Maintain a real-time view of engineering capacity across delivery squads — surface prioritisation conflicts, swap recommendations, and capacity constraints to the CPO and CSO proactively

● Track the cost, timeline, and value delivery of every active initiative — maintaining visibility over budget consumption, milestone adherence, and whether initiatives are delivering the outcomes that justified their approval. Surface material deviations to the CPO and CSO before they become problems

● Own the single source of truth for all active initiatives across both portfolios — keeping status, milestones, dependencies, and risks current at all times

Enterprise Portfolio Management

myZoi's enterprise portfolio spans the operating platform and support functions that underpin the business — the capabilities and infrastructure that enable the product to be built, operated, and scaled. Governing this portfolio means ensuring that operational and procurement initiatives across these functions are assessed, prioritised, and delivered with the same rigour applied to the product portfolio.

● Govern operational and procurement initiatives end to end — from initial classification through technical evaluation, financial approval, and delivery oversight

● Maintain portfolio visibility across transformational strategic initiatives without assuming delivery ownership — flagging resource conflicts and capacity dependencies to senior leadership

● Coordinate with the CTO on engineering capacity decisions and with the CFO on procurement governance

Delivery Intelligence & Risk Management

● Own a live slippage log with root cause categorisation for every deadline and budget movement — no exceptions

● Identify systemic delivery patterns and bring structured recommendations to leadership — not status updates

● Flag forward risks 2–4 weeks before they materialise and drive accountability for recovery

Reporting & Governance Rhythm

● Produce and own a distinct monthly portfolio status report for each of the CPO and CSO — concise, decision-ready, and forward-looking

● Own and facilitate the full governance calendar across weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, and quarterly cadences

● Present delivery intelligence in governance meetings — the EPMO owns the narrative, not the slide deck

Team Leadership

● Lead and coordinate the EPMO team including an Agile Lead and Project Manager — ensuring clear ownership, consistent standards, and delivery continuity across the function

Experience

● 12-15 years in senior program management, portfolio governance, or enterprise PMO roles — with a track record of building governance frameworks from scratch, not just operating within them

● Proven experience governing multiple concurrent portfolios with differentiated governance models across product delivery and enterprise programs

● Direct experience designing and enforcing structured intake, classification, and gate approval processes in high-velocity environments

● Background in a regulated fintech, payments, or financial services environment — familiarity with CBUAE or equivalent central bank regulatory obligations strongly preferred

● Experience managing upward across multiple C-suite stakeholders simultaneously in a matrix or dual-reporting environment

● Hands-on familiarity with agile delivery environments and squad-level capacity planning — sufficient to lead an Agile Lead credibly and challenge delivery estimates with authority

● Commercial orientation — able to frame governance and prioritisation decisions in business value terms, not just process compliance

Certifications

● PMP or PgMP required

● MSP Practitioner and SAFe SA or SPC strongly preferred

● MoP, PMI-ACP, or PRINCE2 Practitioner an advantage

● Familiarity with UAE regulatory environment (CBUAE, SVF licensing) preferred

The Kind of Person Who Will Thrive Here

You hold governance boundaries with authority and without apology — even when the pressure comes from senior product or engineering leadership. You know the difference between owning governance and owning delivery, and you never confuse the two. You bring commercial judgement to prioritisation decisions, not just process discipline. You are comfortable maintaining oversight of exploratory and transformational programs without needing to govern their delivery. You communicate differently to different audiences — operationally detailed with delivery teams, concise and decisive with executives. And you are genuinely forward-looking — you surface risks before they become problems, not after.